Welcome to the latest edition of When Uganda Go, Uganda Stay. After a lot of thought, I have decided to spend one more year in Mbale, which means I will be here until the summer of 2008. More on that later…
I hope everyone enjoyed perusing http://www.papajustin.net/! Dave needs a well-deserved break from it for a while, but keep your eyes out for additions in the coming months.
I hope you all had restful holidays, and festive New Year celebrations. I enjoyed Tanzania/Zanzibar, but the vacation was a bumpy ride at times. After a few days in Kampala, I flew to Dar es Salaam, the capital city of Tanzania. The first day I was there, I experienced my first genuine pickpocket attempt. I was walking through an outdoor market, and someone came up behind me and stuck his foot out. It felt as though I had stepped on someone’s foot, so I turned around to see what had happened. A teenage boy was standing there looking at me. I saw no problem, so I turned around to walk away, and he grabbed me and tugged on my shirt. I turned back to him, and he was pointing at his shoe. I didn’t see anything wrong with his shoe, so I turned again to walk away, and he tugged again. This happened several times, but after the third time, I felt a hand reach in my front pocket while I was turned to the boy behind me. When I felt the hand, I turned around, saw another teenager in front of me, and I shoved him off me. I think an expletive mysteriously escaped from my mouth, and then I quickly walked away, smug that I had foiled the bandits’ attempt to relieve me of my wallet and phone. Luckily the Lonely Planet had given me advanced warning about this market, or I probably would have walked back to my hotel crying like a baby!
There really wasn’t much to do in Dar. The first night I was there, I decided to go out to hear live music, and within five minutes of sitting down, I was pounced on by several ladies of the night, so I had to make a quick escape. Yes, ALONE thank you! The next day I paid to have a cultural tour of Dar, which turned out to be a fish market which was ok, a really bad museum, and stops by all of the upscale mzungu shopping malls and casinos. I think I had sucker tattooed across my forehead. Then it was off to Zanzibar. I also got conned into taking the 6-hour boat to the island rather than the 2-hour boat, but that actually turned out well, because I wrote a song on the way, and gave simple guitar lessons to a Tanzanian singer.
I enjoyed the very narrow winding streets of Stonetown in Zanzibar, and the beaches were beautiful. On the spice tour, it was interesting to see how a lot of the spices we eat grow in their natural environments. I also enjoyed one of the museums in Stonetown that explained Swahili history and culture in depth. And the food was fantastic – a very welcome change from Ugandan “cuisine.” It was also interesting being in a predominantly Islamic culture, watching women walk the streets in Burk has with only their eyes uncovered. It was strange to see the Masaai in full traditional garb at the beaches, working as busboys or selling their jewelry. But I think I went to Zanzibar expecting a much less touristy and more exotic place than what I found. I also got some sort of flu my first four days at the beach. I had managed to find a room at a good place in Kendwa, one of the nicer beaches in the north. But I was running a 103 fever almost the entire time I was there, so I barely got to enjoy it. Fortunately, I purchased Bill Clinton’s 1000 page autobiography, My Life, at the airport, so I had Slick Willie to keep me company in my feverish delirium. I’ve always wanted to read it, but never thought I could make the time to actually finish it. Bill is like one of the family now. Luckily I had good company the entire time I was in Zanzibar, with my friend Jodi from San Francisco, and then later with Seattleites Haley and her sister Autumn that I met in Gulu this fall.
Now back in Mbale, things just aren’t quite the same without hearing the drums of the circumcisions in the distance, and riding home from work to see a procession of boys marching through the village! I will have to wait until August of 2008 until they start again. But more and more, I am really enjoying the work I am doing with FDNC. Last Saturday, we went out to the Buyobo Community, which is very remote, and while de-worming a group of children, (when I first got here I thought the huge distended bellies were from malnutrition, but it turns out it is from worms) we discovered a two year old baby who was severely malnourished, and was suffering from Kwashiorkor, with swelling of the face and feet. The swelling is caused by fluid accumulating in the tissues, and the swollen areas are cold to the touch because of poor circulation. The first picture you see of Dory was taken in Buyobo when she was brought to us, and the second picture was taken after about 8 days of treatment. Now that the swelling has disappeared, you can see she is just skin and bone. We were able to take her and her mother to the Mbale hospital for treatment, and using money donated recently by a friend at home, everyday I have been bringing a little bit of cash to her mother to buy any supplies she needs over the next month while she stays with her daughter in the nutrition ward. I think the mother may be borderline mentally retarded or possibly mentally ill, and didn’t understand how to care for the child. It’s hard to tell because she doesn’t speak any English at all. The community is also highly disorganized, and didn’t seek out help for the girl or the family. Luckily someone had the sense to bring her to us while we were there. I have made it my personal mission to try and organize and develop this community while I am here in Uganda. I am finding that a combination of grassroots fieldwork and management is a great mix for me. I feel like things are really moving here at FDNC, people are energized, and there is a new sense of direction for the organization. I can’t leave with so much work left that I want to do. I was really on the fence until a few weeks after I came back from the holiday, when I realized that the obvious choice for me was to stay another year. I am getting a profound satisfaction out of the work I am doing here. There are sacrifices I have to make to stay, but I gain so many other things, and I know that in the future, I will again enjoy many of the things I am sacrificing now. When I decided to stay, a lot of stress also melted away. What is the plan for work when I come home? Will I have enough money? Where will I live in the city? Can I afford a place on my own? Can I go back to having roommates? Blah Blah Blah. I just wasn’t ready to figure those things out yet. So the plan is for me to assume the position of Executive Director on July 1, while Sam will become Founder and Trustee. Sam still hasn’t decided what his next career move will be, but he has several good options open to him, including the offer with the United Nations in New York.
On the homefront, Mai’s only cow died a few weeks ago. It had been sick for a while, but appeared to be getting better. It was eating again, and we thought it had turned a corner. One morning, I woke up to the sound of Mai wailing, and at first I thought she was crying “My child, my child.” I freaked and ran outside thinking something had happened to Sam or one of her four daughters, but she was actually crying out “My cow, my cow.” It was flopped over on the ground in its pen, dead. So they called a vet to do an autopsy, and performed it right there on the ground outside her house. I had never seen anything like that before. They turned the cow on its back, and slowly slit it down the middle from one end to the other with a dull knife. All of the internal organs were pulled out and cut open. I wasn’t sure how I would react to it, but I was glad to have watched this whole process. Only the smell bothered me. When you see all of the different complex organ systems of a large animal like that splayed out on the ground, it’s amazing to think that this entire machine evolved over millions of years and actually works as it does.
And then they ate it.
So Mai bought a Saddam Hussein calendar for her house recently. It’s comprised of a series of pictures of him throughout his life, including a shot of him being hanged. Now I love Mai, and you won’t meet a more caring person and devout Christian. Sometimes I wonder what’s going on in that head of hers though. I came home from work to find this calendar on her table, and I asked her what her plans were for this lovely item. When I learned that it was going up on the wall in the living room, I was a bit mystified. I told her that I just didn’t think I could eat dinner every night with his menacing visage staring down at me. So he was relegated to a far corner of the room. But a few weeks later, when a group of donors from the UNITED STATES of all places was here, Kubo alerted me that she had put this poster up in her special needs classroom. Sam and I raced to her room to tear it down, beating the donors there by seconds. Afterwards, I asked her why on earth she would put that in her classroom, and she said, “Well, every classroom needs a social studies section right?”
Sam and I burned it.
So everything else I have to report is mostly related to work. I am excited to have started a de-worming program for the children in our own community and in the villages we serve. I am putting a lot of energy into empowering our Community Health Workers and helping them to organize their communities. The Health Clinic continues to move forward. We will have a nurse from Australia here next week for three months, which will be a huge boost for that program. We have started construction of our new building in town that will house our offices and rental spaces for other NGOs. Conso was here in Mbale this week to start on the mural at the school. Abramz will come late Feb./early March for his break dancing workshop at the school. (Thanks Tinez!) And of course, I’m really looking forward to the DJKJ East African Road Show coming in June.
Several people have asked me about sending care packages, and I’ve changed my mind about accepting them. I’ve actually seen quite a few make it here from the States and Europe, and now that I know I will be here until the summer of 2008, I think I could use a little TLC from home. Send to:
Justin Silbaugh
C/o FDNC
PO Box 2431
Mbale, Uganda
East Africa
Thank you!
One last thing…I have a new, unwelcome guest living with me now. I call him Damien for obvious reasons. He’s a large, hairy rat. He comes inside my house at night while I am sleeping, (without permission mind you) and eats my food. He gnawed on a few bananas and apples before I caught on to his clever ruse. I cornered him in the act two nights ago, but when I turned on the light, he scurried up the wall and just before he crawled out onto the roof, he turned and laughed at me. His red beady eyes glowed with pure, unadulterated evil. I felt so emasculated.
So I put my food in a plastic bag, and the next night he ate right through that and had banana puree for dinner. The nerve.
I am going to get that rat bastard.
In fact, I am forming my own Coalition of the Willing to hunt him down, led by the charred remains of the Sadaam calendar. The irony...
I hope everyone enjoyed perusing http://www.papajustin.net/! Dave needs a well-deserved break from it for a while, but keep your eyes out for additions in the coming months.
I hope you all had restful holidays, and festive New Year celebrations. I enjoyed Tanzania/Zanzibar, but the vacation was a bumpy ride at times. After a few days in Kampala, I flew to Dar es Salaam, the capital city of Tanzania. The first day I was there, I experienced my first genuine pickpocket attempt. I was walking through an outdoor market, and someone came up behind me and stuck his foot out. It felt as though I had stepped on someone’s foot, so I turned around to see what had happened. A teenage boy was standing there looking at me. I saw no problem, so I turned around to walk away, and he grabbed me and tugged on my shirt. I turned back to him, and he was pointing at his shoe. I didn’t see anything wrong with his shoe, so I turned again to walk away, and he tugged again. This happened several times, but after the third time, I felt a hand reach in my front pocket while I was turned to the boy behind me. When I felt the hand, I turned around, saw another teenager in front of me, and I shoved him off me. I think an expletive mysteriously escaped from my mouth, and then I quickly walked away, smug that I had foiled the bandits’ attempt to relieve me of my wallet and phone. Luckily the Lonely Planet had given me advanced warning about this market, or I probably would have walked back to my hotel crying like a baby!
There really wasn’t much to do in Dar. The first night I was there, I decided to go out to hear live music, and within five minutes of sitting down, I was pounced on by several ladies of the night, so I had to make a quick escape. Yes, ALONE thank you! The next day I paid to have a cultural tour of Dar, which turned out to be a fish market which was ok, a really bad museum, and stops by all of the upscale mzungu shopping malls and casinos. I think I had sucker tattooed across my forehead. Then it was off to Zanzibar. I also got conned into taking the 6-hour boat to the island rather than the 2-hour boat, but that actually turned out well, because I wrote a song on the way, and gave simple guitar lessons to a Tanzanian singer.
I enjoyed the very narrow winding streets of Stonetown in Zanzibar, and the beaches were beautiful. On the spice tour, it was interesting to see how a lot of the spices we eat grow in their natural environments. I also enjoyed one of the museums in Stonetown that explained Swahili history and culture in depth. And the food was fantastic – a very welcome change from Ugandan “cuisine.” It was also interesting being in a predominantly Islamic culture, watching women walk the streets in Burk has with only their eyes uncovered. It was strange to see the Masaai in full traditional garb at the beaches, working as busboys or selling their jewelry. But I think I went to Zanzibar expecting a much less touristy and more exotic place than what I found. I also got some sort of flu my first four days at the beach. I had managed to find a room at a good place in Kendwa, one of the nicer beaches in the north. But I was running a 103 fever almost the entire time I was there, so I barely got to enjoy it. Fortunately, I purchased Bill Clinton’s 1000 page autobiography, My Life, at the airport, so I had Slick Willie to keep me company in my feverish delirium. I’ve always wanted to read it, but never thought I could make the time to actually finish it. Bill is like one of the family now. Luckily I had good company the entire time I was in Zanzibar, with my friend Jodi from San Francisco, and then later with Seattleites Haley and her sister Autumn that I met in Gulu this fall.
Now back in Mbale, things just aren’t quite the same without hearing the drums of the circumcisions in the distance, and riding home from work to see a procession of boys marching through the village! I will have to wait until August of 2008 until they start again. But more and more, I am really enjoying the work I am doing with FDNC. Last Saturday, we went out to the Buyobo Community, which is very remote, and while de-worming a group of children, (when I first got here I thought the huge distended bellies were from malnutrition, but it turns out it is from worms) we discovered a two year old baby who was severely malnourished, and was suffering from Kwashiorkor, with swelling of the face and feet. The swelling is caused by fluid accumulating in the tissues, and the swollen areas are cold to the touch because of poor circulation. The first picture you see of Dory was taken in Buyobo when she was brought to us, and the second picture was taken after about 8 days of treatment. Now that the swelling has disappeared, you can see she is just skin and bone. We were able to take her and her mother to the Mbale hospital for treatment, and using money donated recently by a friend at home, everyday I have been bringing a little bit of cash to her mother to buy any supplies she needs over the next month while she stays with her daughter in the nutrition ward. I think the mother may be borderline mentally retarded or possibly mentally ill, and didn’t understand how to care for the child. It’s hard to tell because she doesn’t speak any English at all. The community is also highly disorganized, and didn’t seek out help for the girl or the family. Luckily someone had the sense to bring her to us while we were there. I have made it my personal mission to try and organize and develop this community while I am here in Uganda. I am finding that a combination of grassroots fieldwork and management is a great mix for me. I feel like things are really moving here at FDNC, people are energized, and there is a new sense of direction for the organization. I can’t leave with so much work left that I want to do. I was really on the fence until a few weeks after I came back from the holiday, when I realized that the obvious choice for me was to stay another year. I am getting a profound satisfaction out of the work I am doing here. There are sacrifices I have to make to stay, but I gain so many other things, and I know that in the future, I will again enjoy many of the things I am sacrificing now. When I decided to stay, a lot of stress also melted away. What is the plan for work when I come home? Will I have enough money? Where will I live in the city? Can I afford a place on my own? Can I go back to having roommates? Blah Blah Blah. I just wasn’t ready to figure those things out yet. So the plan is for me to assume the position of Executive Director on July 1, while Sam will become Founder and Trustee. Sam still hasn’t decided what his next career move will be, but he has several good options open to him, including the offer with the United Nations in New York.
On the homefront, Mai’s only cow died a few weeks ago. It had been sick for a while, but appeared to be getting better. It was eating again, and we thought it had turned a corner. One morning, I woke up to the sound of Mai wailing, and at first I thought she was crying “My child, my child.” I freaked and ran outside thinking something had happened to Sam or one of her four daughters, but she was actually crying out “My cow, my cow.” It was flopped over on the ground in its pen, dead. So they called a vet to do an autopsy, and performed it right there on the ground outside her house. I had never seen anything like that before. They turned the cow on its back, and slowly slit it down the middle from one end to the other with a dull knife. All of the internal organs were pulled out and cut open. I wasn’t sure how I would react to it, but I was glad to have watched this whole process. Only the smell bothered me. When you see all of the different complex organ systems of a large animal like that splayed out on the ground, it’s amazing to think that this entire machine evolved over millions of years and actually works as it does.
And then they ate it.
So Mai bought a Saddam Hussein calendar for her house recently. It’s comprised of a series of pictures of him throughout his life, including a shot of him being hanged. Now I love Mai, and you won’t meet a more caring person and devout Christian. Sometimes I wonder what’s going on in that head of hers though. I came home from work to find this calendar on her table, and I asked her what her plans were for this lovely item. When I learned that it was going up on the wall in the living room, I was a bit mystified. I told her that I just didn’t think I could eat dinner every night with his menacing visage staring down at me. So he was relegated to a far corner of the room. But a few weeks later, when a group of donors from the UNITED STATES of all places was here, Kubo alerted me that she had put this poster up in her special needs classroom. Sam and I raced to her room to tear it down, beating the donors there by seconds. Afterwards, I asked her why on earth she would put that in her classroom, and she said, “Well, every classroom needs a social studies section right?”
Sam and I burned it.
So everything else I have to report is mostly related to work. I am excited to have started a de-worming program for the children in our own community and in the villages we serve. I am putting a lot of energy into empowering our Community Health Workers and helping them to organize their communities. The Health Clinic continues to move forward. We will have a nurse from Australia here next week for three months, which will be a huge boost for that program. We have started construction of our new building in town that will house our offices and rental spaces for other NGOs. Conso was here in Mbale this week to start on the mural at the school. Abramz will come late Feb./early March for his break dancing workshop at the school. (Thanks Tinez!) And of course, I’m really looking forward to the DJKJ East African Road Show coming in June.
Several people have asked me about sending care packages, and I’ve changed my mind about accepting them. I’ve actually seen quite a few make it here from the States and Europe, and now that I know I will be here until the summer of 2008, I think I could use a little TLC from home. Send to:
Justin Silbaugh
C/o FDNC
PO Box 2431
Mbale, Uganda
East Africa
Thank you!
One last thing…I have a new, unwelcome guest living with me now. I call him Damien for obvious reasons. He’s a large, hairy rat. He comes inside my house at night while I am sleeping, (without permission mind you) and eats my food. He gnawed on a few bananas and apples before I caught on to his clever ruse. I cornered him in the act two nights ago, but when I turned on the light, he scurried up the wall and just before he crawled out onto the roof, he turned and laughed at me. His red beady eyes glowed with pure, unadulterated evil. I felt so emasculated.
So I put my food in a plastic bag, and the next night he ate right through that and had banana puree for dinner. The nerve.
I am going to get that rat bastard.
In fact, I am forming my own Coalition of the Willing to hunt him down, led by the charred remains of the Sadaam calendar. The irony...
Love to all!
Justin
Pic 1 – Dory when she was first brought to us suffering from Kwashiorkor
Pic 2 – Dory after 8 days of treatment-she's slowly recovering
Pic 3 – Auction at the fish market in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
Pic 4 – Community Health Workers who received phones at our most recent meeting posing for the camera!
Pic 5 – Conso and students discussing the beginning stages of the design of the mural for the VS
Justin
Pic 1 – Dory when she was first brought to us suffering from Kwashiorkor
Pic 2 – Dory after 8 days of treatment-she's slowly recovering
Pic 3 – Auction at the fish market in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
Pic 4 – Community Health Workers who received phones at our most recent meeting posing for the camera!
Pic 5 – Conso and students discussing the beginning stages of the design of the mural for the VS
posted by Justin Silbaugh at 8:56 AM
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